A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision makes it very clear that when it comes to issues of potential bribery, absolutely anything that could be considered as having value is fair game as a potential agent of corruption. Tom Foxreports.

A trio of recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions shows just how much companies can spare themselves undue pain if they self-report violations early and without holding back. Tom Foxhas more.

To be sure, enforcement data is an important tool for companies to understand their anti-bribery regulatory risks. But relying solely on U.S. enforcement statistics reveals only part of the increasingly complex and multi-layered regulatory landscape that multinationals are facing today. Inside, a look at what can be accomplished when the U.S. works with other countries on enforcement.

Inspectors at the Department of Health & Human Services are going to spend 2016 studying the security protocols for medical devices and electronic health records, which means compliance officers in the healthcare field should make sure your policies and controls can pass muster. Also on deck are more HIPAA audits, which might prove difficult. “It’s hard to know what is deemed to be acceptable,” says Nathan Kottkamp of law firm McGuire Woods.

Corporate compliance officers may have a new reason to be uncomfortable with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program: how well it appears to be working. Tips are flooding into the SEC, including 3,620 in fiscal year 2014 alone. “The SEC has institutionally embraced the whistleblower statute,” says Brian Kenney, senior partner with Kenney & McCafferty.

They have been there all along, hiding in plain sight: the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act requirements for internal controls. In its latest FCPA guidance, the SEC and Justice Department emphasized the importance of internal controls in effective compliance, which they backed up with two recent enforcement actions. Inside, columnist Tom Fox offers some ideas on how to ensure good internal controls are in place for anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliance.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Smith & Wesson, a Massachusetts-based firearms manufacturer, with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It alleges that employees and representatives of the U.S.-based parent company authorized and made improper payments to foreign officials while trying to win contracts to supply firearm products to military and law enforcement overseas. More inside.

Many companies that announce they are the subject of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation also soon get hit with a shareholder lawsuit charging that the company either made false statements or failed to disclose material information, or its directors breached fiduciary duties. While the lawsuits are becoming more common, they are no easy take for shareholder plaintiffs, since many of them get dismissed. More details inside.

Regulators are getting more serious about encouraging whistleblowers to come forward and protecting them from retaliation. The heads of three whistleblower offices came together last week to provide an update on their programs. Among the observations: Tips are pouring in, and more rewards are on the way. "There will be more news to report on payouts that we will make in the coming months," said Sean McKessy, chief of the SEC's Whistleblower Office.

Global regulators are looking beyond the usual suspects for potential violations of bribery and corruption laws. According to a new report, enforcement actions are quickly piling up in industries that haven't had much exposure in the past, such as retail, technology, and entertainment. Regulators are "reaching into industries that traditionally have not been thought of as posing high FCPA risk," says Laurence Urgenson, a partner with law firm Mayer Brown.

When dealing with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, that old idea that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission doesn't work well. What does work well is the Justice Department's opinion release process, which gives companies views on whether specific actions would violate the law. Inside, columnist Thomas Fox looks at some of the latest opinion releases and concludes that the Justice Department responds to well-reasoned arguments better than many might think.

The Department of Justice is in hot pursuit of product safety cases, and if the record $1.2 billion settlement it reached with Toyota last month is any indication, General Motors—which is facing its own product safety investigation—could be in for an unwelcome surprise. "It signals that the government will use every means at its disposal to go after what it perceives to be harmful conduct," says Maureen Ruane, a partner with law firm Lowenstein Sandler.

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on companies that falsely certify compliance with the United States and EU safe harbor framework on data protection. In the first six weeks of 2014, the FTC entered into 13 settlements to resolve violations where companies falsely claimed compliance with the safe harbor, compared to none last year. More details inside.

Mead Johnson Nutrition announced this week in a Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has launched an internal investigation into potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Details inside.

Avon disclosed in a quarterly earnings report that it could end up shelling out as much as $132 million to settle civil and criminal charges with the Department of Justice and the SEC resulting from possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—more than it had originally projected. The internal investigation has already cost Avon more than $300 million. Details on the potential settlement inside.

Companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, and BT Group are becoming more insistent that third parties they do business with provide their employees with anti-corruption training, making it a condition of doing business with them. And they want more say in exactly how that training is conducted. "I expect to see it more and more as a best practice," says Randy Stephens, vice president at Navex Global.

The Justice Department collected $3.8 billion in settlements and judgments from cases that involve the False Claims Act last year, including a $2.2 settlement with Johnson & Johnson. And with a backlog of cases already building and the Justice Department looking at other industries outside of drug makers and federal contractors, 2014 will be another busy year in FCA enforcement. Full details inside.

In four Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions during the past two years, the Justice Department has agreed to an external monitorship of only 18 months rather than the traditional period of three years. The shortened monitorships were handed out in cases that included far-reaching cooperation and remediation by the company involved. Inside, new CW columnist Thomas Fox looks at what this new type of corporate monitorship means for FCPA compliance.

The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have settled a raft of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases in recent months, including agreements with Alcoa, Diebold, and Weatherford International. The cases point to some important trends in FCPA enforcement: expanded cross-border cooperation and prosecutions, the emergence of the hybrid corporate monitor, and a surge in FCPA fines and penalties. Details inside.

China is increasing its scrutiny of corruption at drug and medical device makers, and putting violators on a blacklist. Those appearing on the list twice in five years will face a two-year nationwide ban. "The new blacklist raises the risks that missteps by individual employees anywhere in China can jeopardize sales everywhere in China," says Nathan Bush, Singapore-based partner at law firm O'Melveny & Myers. More inside.

For all the promise of using Big Data to spot potential fraud, there's a steep hill to climb when getting started: identifying what data to gather and analyze from the heaps of information most companies generate. Getting it wrong can waste time and money. "You really want to collect and analyze only the data that is going to be of most value to you," says David Jonker, senior director at business software company SAP.

2013 was a banner year for enforcement agencies, as they won eye-popping settlements on everything from Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases to mortgage fraud. Rather than ease up in 2014, look for the Department of Justice and the SEC to double down, leveraging whistleblowers and data analytics to spot fraud. Inside we took at the top enforcement trends to expect in 2014.

The next hot tip to the SEC about a possible violation of corruption laws may not come from an internal whistleblower, but from a regulatory agency in a foreign country, as governments increase cooperation on their work to root out bribery and corruption. "We have experienced a transformation in our ability to get meaningful and timely assistance from our international partners," said Andrew Ceresney, co-director of the SEC's Enforcement Division.

Many companies admit they are behind on implementing anti-bribery practices and have not done enough to manage risks. According to a recent survey on bribery and corruption, although many companies say they expect to face a bribery investigation in the next two years, they have still failed to implement such safeguards as background checks, employee training, and formal policies that prohibit the payment of bribes. More survey results inside.